Sleeping Schedule Debate: Ease Them In vs. Cold Turkey
Parents, isn’t summer great? Grilling with friends, baseball games, and late-night movies fill our evenings. In addition, I enjoy my quiet mornings of coffee and writing, while my night owls sleep off the previous day’s adventures. It’s a peaceful kind of life until the cicadas’ songs usher in August.
August is Here
In most homes, mid-August means early mornings, homework, schedules, and practices. As a teacher, I enjoy my summers with my children. The break allows me to recharge from one school year in order to be excited for another. However, I do thrive on change, and even I can welcome how routine brings order to our lives. But this reality invites a kind of change my kids don’t usually want: earlier bedtimes.
If your kids are anything like mine, currently they are staying up late and waking up in the late morning. Right after the Fourth of July, I start debating: should I ease them into a healthy sleep schedule, or do I avoid the frustrating arguments, and let the school year usher in a cold turkey sort of approach? As a parent and teacher, I know better. The cold turkey kind of torture will set us all up for about two weeks of tired misery. The experts all agree: we’ve got to ease them into a sleep schedule.
Kids Need Sleep
When it comes to a bedtime struggle, my oldest is immune. He and I have been waking up before 6 am all summer thanks to football practice. The younger two, however, have been living like P Diddy all break, and I think even Puff’s mom would make him establish a good routine before the tardy bells start ringing. According to US News, our kids need a lot more sleep than most of them are getting.
“American Academy of Pediatrics [recommendations] for total hours of sleep pre-school and school-aged kids should get by age:
- Children 3 to 5 years of age should sleep 10 to 13 hours daily to promote optimal health. That includes naps.
- Children 6 to 12 years of age should sleep 9 to 12 hours daily.
- Teenagers 13 to 18 years of age should sleep 8 to 10 hours daily.”
If you ask any teen, they will tell you getting a full 8 let alone 10 hours of sleep is quite nearly impossible after work, practice, and homework, but it’s nice to keep this goal in mind.
Because these recommendations can be hard to follow after a summer of S’mores and swimming, The Sleep Foundation recommends easing our children into a school sleep schedule a few weeks before school, chopping off bedtime 15 minutes earlier and waking them up 15 minutes earlier until the big first day.
Here are some tips to get them ready for bed:
- Make sure they have had plenty of physical activity throughout the day
- Have them take a warm shower or bath
- Remove screens an hour before bedtime
- Encourage them to read a book
- Make sure they avoid caffeine
- Make the bedroom dark and distraction-free
Research Says…
The Sleep Foundation went on to say that children should use their beds only for sleep. Parents should designate an area for homework in a different room of the house. This will condition children to associate their bed with sleep.
The beginning of the school year provides us all with a much-needed routine, but the bedtime debate is one that I have every year with my kids. This year, my husband and I are going to try to ease them into a normalized schedule about two weeks before school starts. The healthiest kids are the ones who get their sleep, and I want to give my kids the opportunity to thrive. What about your family? How do you get them back on track after a fun-filled summer?